Page:Early English adventurers in the East (1917).djvu/55

 A day or two later the formal farewell audience took place. The King handed over to Lancaster his reply to Elizabeth's letter, in which with a wealth of Oriental hyperbole, he granted freedom of trade to the subjects of "the Sultana who doth rule in the Kingdom of England, France, Ireland, Holland and Friesland," and expressed the wish that the Deity would "continue that Kingdom and Empire long in prosperity." Some presents to accompany this missive were entrusted to Lancaster with a ruby ring for himself.

There was then a pause, and Lancaster was about to take his leave when the King broke in with a strange question.

"'Have you the Psalms of David extant among you? he asked.

"The General answered, 'Yea, and we sing them daily.'

"Then said the King, 'I and the rest of these nobles about me will sing a Psalm to God for your prosperity,' and so they did it very solemnly. And after it was ended the King said—

"'I would hear you sing another Psalm, although in your own language.'

"So there being in the company some twelve of us we sung another Psalm and after the Psalm was ended the General took his leave of the King."

With this delightful scene Lancaster's sojourn at Acheen may be said to have terminated, for a few hours later he was at sea again.

With a passing call at Priaman for a supply of pepper awaiting him there, Lancaster proceeded to Bantam, which port he reached in the early days of December. Bantam, like Acheen, was a small Malay principality, a fragment of the larger sovereignty which once wielded sway over a